This invention relates to a data package template, tag, with data embedding.
In particular, although not exclusively, it relates to a dot based data package template format structure, or tag format structure (TFS).
Various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending applications filed by the Applicant or Assignee of the present invention on 23 May 2000:
In addition, various methods, systems and apparatus relating to the present invention are disclosed in the following co-pending United States patent applications filed simultaneously by the applicant or assignee of the present invention: U.S. Ser. No. 09/607,985, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,398,332, 6,394,573.
The disclosures of these co-pending applications are incorporated herein by cross-reference. Each application is temporarily identified by its docket number, which will be replaced by the corresponding USSN when available.
Of particular relevance is US patent application entitled xe2x80x9cPrinted Page Tag Encoderxe2x80x9d, hereafter referred to by reference U.S. Ser. No. 09/575,109.
Nowadays, nearly every item purchased from a shop contains a barcode of some description on the packaging. The barcode provides a convenient way of identifying an object by a product number. The exact interpretation of the product number depends on the type of barcode. Warehouse inventory tracking systems let users define their own product number ranges, while inventories in shops must be more universally encoded so that products from one company don""t overlap with products from another company.
Barcodes themselves have been specified in a large number of formats. The older barcode formats contain characters that are displayed in the form of lines. The combination of black and white lines describe the information the barcodes contains. Often there are two types of lines to form the complete barcode: the characters (the information itself) and lines to separate blocks for better optical recognition. While the information may change from barcode to barcode, the lines to separate blocks stay constant. The lines to separate blocks can therefore be thought of as part of the constant structural components of the barcode.
Barcodes are read with specialized reading devices, such as lightpens, gun readers and scanners, that pass the extracted data onto a computer for further processing.
To help ensure that the extracted data was read correctly, checksums were introduced as a crude form of error detection. More recent barcode formats use redundancy encoding schemes such as Reed-Solomon. Such a scheme is utilized in the Aztec 2D barcode as disclosed U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,956. Often the degree of redundancy encoding is user selectable.
Two dimensional barcodes have been developed in which the information is encoded in two dimensions, instead of storing the information as a series of lines where the data is extracted from a single dimension. Just as with the original barcodes, the 2D barcode contains both information and structural components for better optical recognition. FIG. 1 shows an example of a Quick Response (QR) Code, developed by Denso of Japan and disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,726,435. Note the barcode cell is comprised of two areas: a data area (depending on the data being stored in the barcode), and a constant position detection pattern. The constant position detection pattern is used by the reader to help locate the cell itself, then to locate the cell boundaries, to allow the reader to determine the original orientation of the cell. The orientation can be determined by the fact that there is no 4th corner pattern.
One problem associated with the range of barcodes available is that hardware for producing these barcodes is specific to the particular barcode format. As printers become more and more embedded, there is an increasing desire for real-time printing of these barcodes.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a data package template with data embedding.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a generic tag format structure that supports generic encoding schemes.
Other objects of the present invention will be evident from the following discussion.
In one form, although it need not be the only, or indeed the broadest, form, the invention resides in a generic data package template for representing data formed from a plurality of dots, said data package template comprising:
an arbitrarily shaped constant background pattern formed from a plurality of dots and/or blanks; and
at least one arbitrarily shaped data area;
said data area containing data dots located at positions determined by an encoding scheme.
In another form, the invention resides in a method of packaging data in a generic data package template formed from a plurality of dots, the method including the steps of:
constructing a bit array of entries for each dot position within said data package, said array of entries defining whether each said dot is part of an arbitrarily shaped constant background pattern or an arbitrarily shaped data area;
encoding said data for storage in said data area; and
printing said plurality of dots encoded with said data.